Step aside TACO, there’s a new nickname for the US President as the war in the Middle East enters its third month.

Donald Trump was given the TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) moniker about a year ago to describe a popular trading strategy centred around his start-and-stop tariff policies.

It was coined by a Financial Times columnist who noticed that Trump’s threats caused market disruptions that reversed after he backtracked.

Now Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas is being credited with a new acronym for Trump, amid global frustration at the on-and-off blockade in the Strait of Hormuz that has disrupted global oil trade and caused a historic spike in fuel prices.

“We thought we were getting a TACO, ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’. But so far we are getting a NACHO, ‘Not A Chance Hormuz Opens’,” Blas wrote on X late last week.

More than two months since the US and Israel launched their war with Iran, the vital sea channel remains closed, choking off 20 per cent of the world’s ‌oil and gas supplies.

Efforts to resolve the conflict have hit an impasse. A ceasefire has been in place since April 8 but Iran continues to block the strait in response to the US naval blockade of its oil exports, which are Tehran’s economic lifeline.

Trump has previously given Iran a series of deadlines to open the waterway, only to push them back before the ceasefire was reached. That prompted his critics to breathe new life into the TACO nickname.

Trump will, no doubt, not be happy. Asked about his nickname last year he said that was the “nastiest question” and his method was “called negotiation”.

“I chicken out? Oh, I’ve never heard that,” he said.

In February, the US Supreme Court ruled that many of Trump’s tariffs were illegal.

More recently, with no signs of progress on the Strait of Hormuz, NACHO has emerged as a new description of the President. It’s fair to say the White House is unimpressed.

“Are these the same geniuses who thought President Trump would never secure voluntary most-favoured-nations drug-pricing deals or renegotiate broken trade deals?” spokesperson Kush Desai said last week.

Separately, Iran’s leadership remains defiant, warning the US it has no place in the Gulf region. A statement attributed to its new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said on Thursday the only place Americans belonged in the Gulf was “at the bottom of its waters”.

“By God’s help and power, the bright future of the [Arabian] Gulf region will be a future without America,” it said.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tehran’s control over the strait would shape a future free of US influence.

“Today, by managing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will provide itself and its neighbours with the precious blessing of a future free from American presence and interference,” he wrote on X.

Brent prices have doubled since the war began on February 28, driving inflation and sending petrol prices to politically painful levels worldwide.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that if the disruption caused by the closure dragged on through mid-year, global growth would fall, inflation would rise and tens of millions more people would be pushed into poverty and ⁠extreme hunger.

“The longer this vital artery is choked, the harder it will be to reverse the damage,” he said in ‌New York.

As well as blocking almost all but its own shipping through the strait, Iran has launched drones and missiles at Israel and at US bases, infrastructure and US-linked companies in Gulf states.

US officials have said Trump is considering extending blockade on Iran or declaring a unilateral victory in the war.

The US State Department has also has invited partner countries to join a new coalition called Maritime Freedom Construct to enable ​ships ​to navigate the strait.

“The MFC constitutes a critical first step in the establishment of a post-conflict ​maritime security architecture for the Middle East,” a cable from the department said.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed last week that Australia had been briefed by the US on its latest proposal.

“We are working with all of our partners, the United Kingdom, France and the United States,” she said.

“We are engaging on options, noting that we have already provided defensive and diplomatic support to the region.”

-with AAP